May 15, 2017

American Royal Announces Winners Of Best Sauce On The Planet For 2017

For almost as long as the American Royal in Kansas City has been hosting the world’s largest professional barbecue competition, known as the World Series of Barbecue, they have also been hosting the world’s largest barbecue sauce competition.

After all, what is good barbecue, without a little sauce?

Last Sunday, the 30th annual American Royal World Series of Barbecue Sauce competition, took place in the West Bottoms, with over 606 sauces vying for the top prize, which consists of a cash prize, the ability to market your barbecue sauce as a sanctioned winner of the American Royal World Series of Barbecue Sauce competition and the much coveted “Best Sauce on the Planet” trophy.

Hosted every year, during the month of May to honor national barbecue month, the American Royal World Series of Barbecue Sauce contest unofficially kicks off the new 2017 competitive barbecue season for the American Royal.

“The American Royal World Series of Barbecue Sauce Contest is open to any producer of a retail barbecue sauce and provides the opportunity for them to put their sauce up against other sauces from around the world for the chance to be named “Best Sauce on the Planet,” said Lynn Parman, President and CEO of the American Royal. “The contest continues to grow and this year we saw an increase in the number of entries and the number of states and countries represented.”

Seventy assembled judges evaluated barbecue sauces submitted from 43 states and 13 countries. The furthest entry came from Melbourne, Australia traveling 9,282 miles to compete. This year’s contest was the largest in its history with over 150 more entries than in 2016.

“We put out our call to entry around the first of the year, and then boxes of barbecue sauces from all over the world start flooding our offices right up until the competition,” says Parman. “As part of the submitting process, we ask each competitor to send additional bottles of their competing sauce so that we can sell them in our marketplace store that we set up during the American Royal barbecue competition every year.”

On the day of the sauce competition, the original sauce bottles are opened and a small amount of each sauce are poured into a clear plastic squeeze bottle with a label that matches the label on the original bottle submitted that is kept hidden from the judges in a separate room.

The judges then take a seat at small tables in an upstairs meeting room at the American Royal for a blind tasting of each sauce. Estimated to take about 2 hours, all the judges in this sauce competition, must be certified barbecue judges. The thinking is if you can judge the meat, you can judge the sauce that goes on the meat. The judges will sample each sauce plain, and then again with a piece of unseasoned barbecue meat.

They place their votes based on the texture, appearance and taste of each barbecue sauce in five pre-determined categories --Tomato Mild, Tomato Hot, Mustard, Vinegar and Specialty, a category dominated by sauces with fruit, boozy flavors and unique spices.

These are the 2017 First Place Winners by category and the Grand Prize Winner of “Best Sauce on the Planet”:

The “Best Sauce on the Planet” grand prize winner will be presented with the legendary globe trophy during the Invitational awards ceremony at the American Royal World Series of Barbecue this Labor Day weekend at the Kansas Speedway.